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4 Common Mistakes When Using Hosted Dialler Reports

Developed around the needs of call centres, today’s advanced hosted diallers come packed with all kinds of reporting functionality. However, in the wrong hands or with the wrong planning, all that potential intelligence can go to waste.

Your hosted dialler should offer a range of sophisticated reports right out of the box. You can then go even further, working with your service provider to create custom reports and automate their distribution. However, it’s important to remember the function that your technology serves – to increase your visibility, highlight performance issues, and give you a chance to improve.

If you’re choosing or reconsidering your reporting process, don’t make these four mistakes.

1. Reporting on too many KPIs

A great advantage of a hosted dialler is that you can capture data on just about everything. That doesn’t mean you should report on everything.

In many instances, call centre managers equate more information with more intelligence. However, it’s easy to cross a line into information overload, where you’re reporting on so many metrics that it’s hard to keep track of the ones that count.

The best results come from selecting just a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and making them the heart of your reporting. That way, your attention is always on the things that matter most – and important changes aren’t lost in a sea of numbers.

2. Focusing on the wrong KPIs

If you’re avoiding the mistake of focusing on too many KPIs, you need to be absolutely certain your narrow field of vision is targeted in the right place. This is largely a matter of preference and, often, determined by the values, ethos and attitude of a call centre.

As an example, consider an inbound contact centre where keeping queues down seems like an immediate priority. You may choose to focus your reporting on a metric like Average Handling Time, measuring how quickly calls are completed.

However, this is just one part of the picture. Your agents may be minimising handling time at the cost of customer satisfaction or resolving issues first time. A call centre that is at peak performance by one metric could be seriously failing in the ways that really count.

3. Working with incomplete data

We’ve all seen the rise of the multichannel contact centre over the past few years, but reporting hasn’t always been able to keep up. Until recently, channels like web chat and email have been hugely under-measured and under-reported.

If you’re working across multiple channels, it’s not enough to capture basic data on performance. This data needs to work seamlessly alongside the rest of your reporting suite, giving you a comprehensive view over every customer interaction, on every channel.

In addition, the data in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can be leveraged to complement your hosted dialler reporting. Your service provider should be able to help you integrate your systems together so your reporting is always complete.

4. Spending too much time on reporting

Finally, the worst mistake you can make when using hosted dialler reporting is simply spending all your time and energy running and distributing reports.

Reporting is supposed to add value to your business by giving you the insights you need to make informed decisions. All too often, it becomes yet another item on your to-do list, leading to missed reporting and, in turn, missed opportunities.

To make life easier, your hosted dialler should offer ways to automate the entire process. Just select the reports you need, define a schedule, and have them emailed to every stakeholder automatically on a regular basis.

It’s a way to get the information you need, when you need it – not when it’s too late to have a real impact on performance.